The Rockaway Hotel is pleased to present a one-night only installation of Katie Murray’s video installation, SOS, on June 15th, 2023- 8pm (installation will begin at sunset). The video artwork explores our relationship with time, existence, and nostalgia.
SOS
Back in the early aughts, I briefly toured the US with the prog-punk band An Albatross, whose music can best be described as jubilant excess. My husband had just joined the band as a drummer, and I was looking for any excuse to get on the road.
It was all I expected from a tour- a boozy and hazy few weeks, where I was more likely to see the sunrise, bleary-eyed, than to see it set. Each new day was different and exactly the same. Shifting landscapes and topographies flowed past the van windows accompanied by an endless stream of gas stations, strip malls, main streets, night clubs, warehouses, motels, merch tables, squats, sweat, and bad sleep. Wake up slowly, rinse and repeat.
Time had a way of existing parallel to the outside world but not quite in sync with it.
Even still, we could all sense the country was shifting. 911 was still fresh in our minds, we had been at war for years and signs of the recession were beginning to creep in. People were on edge and angrier than I had anticipated. Social media was still in the MySpace days and had yet to morph into the biased creation of reality that it is today.
Fast forward a decade and a half, to the early stages of the pandemic, where once again my relationship to time began to warp. Each day different and exactly the same. This time, the anger- along with fear, loss, nostalgia, and loneliness- was palpable.
Homebound and desperate to move beyond the small parameters of my existence; I imagined a wild cross-country ride. This fictional journey, constructed from both personal and sought-after footage; through space, time, and memory seemed to beckon a sensory overload score. Hence, a re-working of An Albatross’ “3000 Light Years By Way Of The Spacehawk”.
The resulting video, The Serpent Beguiled Us, and We Ate, will be installed on the surface of the Rockaway Hotel’s pool. In this ethereal setting, time takes on a mysterious quality, bending, distorting, and ebbing and flowing like the tide.
Existing parallel to the outside world but not quite in sync with it.
Katie Murray
108-10 Rockaway Beach Drive
Rockaway Park, NY 11694
The Purchase Phoenix
Katie Murray: Photography Professor
Updated: Apr 11
By Tyler Thompson
Coming in last semester, Katie Murray has brightened up the photography program and continues to every day, according to students. Murray is a professor and adviser here at Purchase and teaches Senior Seminar 1, Still Motion and Lens in Time. She keeps her students engaged and wanting more after every class…
Photography students have expressed that they are incredibly grateful for Murray. Bobby Cambria, a senior photography major, said, “Her critiques leave classmates and me feeling rejuvenated about our work. A feeling that I personally haven’t felt in the photo department for a while.”
Zoe Manalo, a second-semester senior, feels the same way about Murray. "It’s very refreshing having a new professor with a different perspective. She pushes for more talkative critiques, and pushes you to shoot more and dig deeper,” Manalo said…
Something Murray wants to tell all artists is to “never stop working.”
“The only way out of an artist block or creative block is to get through it and you get through it by working through it so whatever you do pick up that tool and do the thing that you're meant to do, and you'll get to the other side,” she said.
SOS exhibition at Fish Island Gallery
“On the whole I don’t want look at/read/listen to/engage with work that directly references the pandemic and the roller coaster of the last few years. ‘The Serpent Beguiled Us, and We Ate’ by Katie Murray is an exception...
Loneliness, fear, anger and loss soar through it. Having watched so much of what unfolded in the USA over the past few years through a screen, this seems to distill it all for me. The dystopian edge feels both real and remote at the same time.
It has just been shown in the middle of the sea at Fish Island Gallery - an exhibition space located on a small island in the Long Island Sound just off the coast of Southwestern Connecticut. To have it echoing out into the water with nobody watching seems both perfect and poetic.”
Art Historian/curator/writer Dr. Susan Bright
ASMR4 Vol.10
ASMR4, Vol. 10 – Trailcam Photographs by Bill & Tony is now published.
ASMR4 is a small run, quarterly publication co-edited by Katie Murray, Victoria Sambunaris, Dan Torop, and Adam Putnam. The first four volumes of this project served as both conversation and message. The subsequent four focused on the strange and forgotten. ASMR4 Vol. 10 is the second in the current series, which fixates on the obsessive and anachronistic.
Trailcam Photographs are photographs of survival.
Pilot Peak was a landmark for the Donner Party on the emigrant trail. In September 1846, they abandoned their wagons and oxen to reach Pilot Springs at the foot of Pilot Peak after a treacherous journey across the Great Salt Lake Desert, unaware of their destiny that lay ahead.
Near Pilot Peak, in the remote mountains of northeast Nevada, sits another testimony to survival. In this parched desert landscape, which receives an average of 8.27 inches of rain per year, there is a trough where animals flock to satiate their thirst.
— Vicky Sambunaris
where to buy:
ASMR4 v.5-10 are available for individual purchase. Subscriptions to v.9-12 are available.
ASMR4 Vol. 9
IASMR4, Vol. 9 – Field Work: Photographs by Ilana Halperin is now published.
Please join us for a launch of Field Work
Saturday Dec 3, 2022, 4-6pm
PPOW 390 Broadway, NYC, 2nd Floor
ASMR4 is a small run, quarterly publication co-edited by Katie Murray, Victoria Sambunaris, Dan Torop, and Adam Putnam. The first four volumes of this project served as both conversation and message. The subsequent four focused on the strange and forgotten. ASMR4 Vol. 9, inaugurates a new series fixating on the obsessive and anachronistic.
Ilana Halperin’s Field Work is a brief but comprehensive look at the artist’s collection of photographs shot over the course of 20 years and across several continents. Following her own obsession with the formation of new landmass, these photos, shot with a Holga, document the various kinds of eruptions encountered by the artist on her travels. However, seeing them all together for the first time, I would say that it is the photos themselves that are erupting… as if the small plastic camera could barely contain what it saw.
— Adam Putnam
Meditations on 11 Boys
by juliana roccoforte novello
ASMR4, Vol. 8 – Clear Comfort: Photographs from the Alice Austen Archive is now published.
ASMR4 is a small run publication co-edited by Katie Murray, Victoria Sambunaris, Dan Torop, and Adam Putnam. The first four volumes served as both conversation and message. The current series focuses on the strange and forgotten. The latest issue v.8, Clear Comfort, concludes this series.
Clear Comfort, Alice Austen’s family home, held within its boundaries all of the complications that a home can represent. At best, a home can be a catalyst for creativity and exploration. At worst it can prohibit, interfere, inhibit. Recognizing that, Austen turned her camera towards her home and the people with whom she shared her life.
— Katie Murray
where to buy:
ASMR4 v.3-8 are available for individual purchase – or v.5-8 are available as a set – via https://asmr4.square.site/.
Individual issues are stocked by Petzel Bookstore, 456 w. 18th street NYC.
Thanks Booooooom for featuring my new work What About the Horses!
Please join us for the launch of ASMR4 vol.7 this Friday January 10th 6-8pm.
Penumbra Foundation
36 East 30th street
New York, NY10016
ASMR4 is a small run publication co-edited by Katie Murray, Victoria Sambunaris, Dan Torop, and Adam Putnam. The first four volumes served as both conversation and message. The current series focuses on the strange and forgotten. The latest issue is v.7, Icebergs: floating chunks of rock and snow; from the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives and the Ralph Stockman Tarr expeditions.
In 1997, I had a scheme. I would travel north. There would be no hurry. From New England into Canada, toward upper Quebec and the Hudson Bay. I would stop at rural airstrips and mosquito-ridden streams. It would take months, even years, to make my way north. I thought that there would always be a chill and sparsely peopled north into which to journey.
This journey never happened, but images have accumulated.
— Dan Torop
for more information or to order online:
also available: Petzel Bookstore 456 w 18th street, NYC
Happy to have contributed to Essex Flowers Festival @ Essex Flowers Gallery. Opening Reception Sunday August 11, 7p.m. #EatBloodyPussy: A Community Garden.
Great interview with Adam Putnam on our new publication Alfred Cook, ASMR4.
ASMR4, Vol. 5 – Alfred Cook: Archival Photographs from The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library
Please join us for the release of ASMR4, Vol. 5 – Alfred Cook: Archival Photographs from The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library – Tuesday Dec. 18, 6-8pm
The Penumbra Foundation, 36 E 30th Street, New York, NY
ASMR4 is a small run, quarterly publication co-edited by Katie Murray, Victoria Sambunaris, Dan Torop, and Adam Putnam. While the first 4 volumes served as both conversation and message, the upcoming series will focus on the strange and forgotten.
Twenty years ago, while working as a book conservator at the Frick Art Reference Library, I was given the job of cleaning and preserving a series of photo albums, artifacts from when the Frick residence was being rebuilt as a library and museum. The albums contained original photographs taken by Alfred Cook, a footman to the Frick family. His images reveal a lexicon of strange and curious subjects: dark hallways, empty rooms, and most notably, light fixtures. The images reproduced in this book were made between 1933 and 1935.
— Adam Putnam
ASMR4 v.2-4 are available for online purchase via Paypal to sales@asmr4.net. Send $10 per book plus $3 US shipping. Subscribe to v.5-8 by sending $40 (US shipping included). Send an email to sales@asmr4.net regarding paying by check or international shipping.
ASMR4 v.1-4 are available for purchase at Spoonbill & Sugartown in Bushwick (99 Montrose Ave., Brooklyn, NY).
ASMR4 is pleased to announce the release of its fourth volume, Ordinary Matter, by photographer Katie Murray. The title Ordinary Matter, scientifically speaking, alludes to all that is seen and knowable. Making use of visual alliteration and an aesthetic rhythm the work in this volume considers the mysterious nature of familiarity. Murray’s collection of images exist somewhere between the mythic and the mundane, reflecting a reality that is both rooted in and removed from our own.
To celebrate the release of Ordinary Matter, Spoonbill Studios (99 Montrose Ave. in Brooklyn) will host a gathering Thursday, September 13, 7-9PM. Please stop by! Volumes 1-4 of ASMR4 will be on sale.
ASMR4 is a collaboration between Katie Murray, Victoria Sambunaris, Dan Torop, and Adam Putnam. Each volume serves as a conversation and message.
Happy to have contributed an essay and images to Dear Dave Magazine, Issue 26.
2018 LUCIE AWARD PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR
Thank you to Stephen Frailey for your support and the challenge of writing! #deardavemag, #DD26, #allthequeensmen
New York friends, please join us for the launch of ASMR4 v.2, Victoria Sambunaris’s Trafficking, at Spoonbill Studios, 99 Montrose Avenue, Brooklyn, Thursday, January 25, 7PM-9PM.
ASMR4 is a small-run conversation. A conversation between 4 photographers in the form of a book. 16 page signatures. 16 page late night conversations at a bar. The second volume features a selection of images by Victoria Sambunaris from her project Trafficking. The work addresses the petrochemical and industrial cargo trades and the effect they have on marine habitats. Sambunaris is a project-based photographer who organizes her life around annual road trips across the American West, equipped with nothing but a 5x7 wooden field camera, camping gear, and a few months supply of canned sardines and crackers. The large-scale photos of the contemporary American landscape tell a conflicted story in geographic, economic and cultural terms. The current work stems from Sambunaris’ invitation to the Galveston Artist Residency and her collaboration with National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration marine biologist Kristopher Benson in 2015. The collaboration allows a more comprehensive scientific perspective and alludes to the expansion of global markets and the intensification of consumption worldwide.
ASMR4 v.1, Reclaimed Empire, and v.2, Trafficking, are available for purchase at Spoonbill & Sugartown in Bushwick (99 Montrose Ave., Brooklyn, NY). Or send a note to asmr4@asmr4.net. Price is $10 and shipping.
Very Excited to announce the launch of ASMR4!
ASMR4 is a small-run conversation. A conversation between 4 photographers in the form of a book. 16 page signatures. 16 page late night conversations at a bar. The first volume of this experiment is a sequence taken from Adam Putnam’s film project Reclaimed Empire (Deep Edit) 2008-2016, an ongoing series comprised of over 80 fragments and short video works. The title, initially an overt nod to Warhol’s Empire, speaks less about homage, and more to the notion of a constant return to repeated subject matter - a gaze that never leaves, that stares un-blinkingly – mechanically - at the same subject. “This was my Empire, comprised of whatever was on hand in my studio, sculptural fragments, broken mirrors, architectural models and other detritus…”
ASMR4 is co-edited by Katie Murray, Adam Putnam, Vicky Sambunaris and Dan Torop.
New York friends, please join us for the launch of ASMR4 vol. 1, Adam Putnam’s Reclaimed Empire, at Spoonbill Studios, 99 Montrose Avenue, Brooklyn, Sunday, September 10, 7PM.
→ Playing with Words in the Most Linguistically Diverse Place in the World
Tongue Tide Exhibition at Flux Factory opens tonight 6-9
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Long Island City Flux Factory is pleased to present its next 2017 Major Exhibition, Tongue Tide, opening Thursday, July 6 from 6-9PM. The exhibition will be on view through Sunday, July 30 with gallery hours on Saturdays & Sundays from 1-6PM, and by appointment. Inspired by Flux Factory’s location in Queens, NY – the most language-dense area in the world– Tongue Tide explores the multitude of ways in which artists engage with language, addressing both its tide-like ebb and flow as well as its limitations. Investigating the ways in which we experience, use and understand words, the projects will take many forms including: games, performances, photography, installation, neon sign, nomadic library, opera, karaoke booth, artists books, online dictionary, video installation, walks, conversations over meals, visual storytelling workshops and more.
Public Events:Opening Reception, July 6th, 6-9PM Featuring The Blue Bus Project, and performances by Irene Chan, JeviJoe Vitug, and Martha Wilson.Flux Thursday, July 13, 5:30PM Artist walk by Bibi Calderaro, followed by a potluck with performances by Maribel Placencia and Purgatory Pie Press.Cinema Flux, July 26, 8PM organized by J Triangular.
Closing Reception, July 30th, 2-6PMPerformances by Amela Parcic with Marija Draskic, an opera by Michal Dzitko, and a potluck dinner organized by Masoom Moitra.Participating
Artists:Amela Parcic & Marija Draskic, Amira Hanafi, The Blue Bus Project, Bibi Calderaro, Carlos Salas, Eugenio De Giovanni Pizzorno, Graciela Cassel, Grayson Earle, Heather Kapplow & Ernie Kim, Helen Lee, Irene Chan, Jean Barberis & Daupo, Jevijoe Vitug, J Triangular, Katie Murray, Kristin McIver, Magali Duzant, Masoom Moitra, Maribel Plasencia, Martha Wilson, Michal Dzitko, Nina Ross, P A L / Pilipinx American Library, Patricia Silva, Purgatory Pie Press, Rashedul Deepon & Dan Silverman, and Xenia Diente
That Shadow, My Likeness catalogue has been added to the MOMA Library Collection.
Katie Murray
That Shadow, My Likeness
Tops Gallery400 South Front StreetMemphis, TN 38104
February 24th - April 2nd
Tops Gallery is pleased to announce Katie Murray: That Shadow, My Likeness, the twenty-fifth show at the gallery.That Shadow, My Likeness, a title borrowed from Walt Whitman'sLeaves of Grass, engages sight, sound, and the passing of time. Murray’s intimate color portraits, still lifes, and audibly dense video,Slaying, consider sequential, cyclical, and repetitive nature.
Through a controlled use of color, form, and repetition Murray creates a mysterious metre from her familiar subjects. Her work in the show at Tops includes a portrait of her son with his arm in a red cast, posing sans shirt, against a red wall and a still life of that same cast, cast aside, coolly shot in bright winter light. Other portraits describe a young boy displaying his hand as it casts an abstracted shadow across his torso, while another shows a woman gazing intently, “waiting for Pope Francis”, as she cradles her weathered hands in sober anticipation. The video, Slaying, depicts the artist’s husband, drummer Ed Klinger, rehearsing the Slayer song “disciple” with vigorous concentration. This work echoes through the anteroom gallery into the main gallery mirroring qualities shared in the photographs.
My video Gazelle is now on view until October 15 in the exhibition BODY at the European Capital of Culture 2016 Wroclaw, Poland
All The Queens Men is now on view through July 31 at the Benaki Museum in Athens Greece.
Thrilled to have curated this show On The Waterfront! Opening reception Saturday January 30 5pm-8 pm. 583 Third Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215
Victoria Sambunaris
Thanks Cory for including my work in this online group show!
My video piece “girls in 4/4″ will be screening Friday 9/18, Saturday 9/19, and Sunday 9/20 at After School Special 2015: SVA’s Alumni Film & Animation Festival
Friday, September 18, 2015 -
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Event hosted by: School of Visual Arts
SVA’s 2015 Alumni Film & Animation Festival
Featuring some of School of Visual Arts’ most accomplished film, television, animation, and visual effects alumni, this multi-day festival will include screenings, premieres of new work, and behind-the-scenes looks at cinema & television hits and classics, and all events will feature special Q&As with industry insiders. A full schedule and list of participants is below (subject to change) and can also be found atsvatheatre.eventbrite.com.
Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. RSVPs via the Eventbrite pages linked to below are appreciated, but not necessary. Doors will open approximately 30 minutes prior to each screening.
- See more at: http://svatheatre.com/events/alumnifest2015/#sthash.TDgcBiO0.dpuf
Thanks PDN for choosing my still from Gazelle video as your PDN Photo of the Day!
→ Still from "Gazelle," 2012. © Katie Murray/Courtesy of the Artist
Time Lightbox All The Queens Men
New York Times Magazine
WHAT THEY WERE THINKING
J.J. Licari and Joe Licari, Bellmore, N.Y., March 18, 2000
Photograph By KATIE MURRAY Interviews By CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS
J.J. Licari: My dad and I are identical. The way we speak, the way we gesture -- it's a little freaky sometimes. I think every generation gets a little better. You have good values, take them for what they are worth, change them when you should. At first my parents were like, "Of course you have to go to college." But I want to be an actor. My dad wanted me to have more of a secure life than he did. He's such a hard worker, seeing me being lackadaisical about everything was hard. But the college thing wore off. You know what they say now? Just take acting classes; what are you waiting for? The only thing I can say is I wanted to relax in my youth a little more. This was my first real feel of getting my photograph taken. I was thinking the same thing I'm always thinking: that I want to be a star. Except it was more intense. It felt a little for real for the first time. I was thinking, Hey, hey, finally I'm starting.
Joe Licari: I hoped J.J. wouldn't do what I did -- not go to school. But he wants to act. In the beginning, it was hard. Still, if you're not happy, what's the point? Little by little, I let it go. I don't think he's ever going to work a 9-to-5 job. Maybe it's because he's seen me work 9 to 5 all my life to support the family. Or is it just because kids are spoiled? At the mirror a weird thing happened. It was the first time I thought about him being 21. And I looked in the mirror and saw me. I was looking in the mirror and seeing me like when I was a kid. It was a reflection of me, young. I blazed off into my youth.
Table of Contents
July 09, 2000